Ted,

I’m so happy for you that you’re getting your first book published! {Just when I thought my life couldn’t get more depressing, this happens. It’s a sign of the degradation of our society, and if publishers and consumers bought anything of any merit, rather than nasty, moronic crime melodramas, then it would be my novels in print, and your ode to idiocy would lie unread in the only storage space you have, under the bed in your squalid little studio grief-hole, while your ugly, frail body, racked with alcohol-sweats and tears, would lie pathetically on the yellowed sheets above}

• A test of your patience for reminding people that it is the first Wednesday of the month.

• Your city’s reminder that it is the first Wednesday of the month.

• A test of the Look Outside Anyway Alarm.

On your last math test you answered several questions correctly but deliberately tried to erase your steps toward finding the answers. You are clearly a genius. So when I received your “Dogs are the Best” story I was excited to read it at lunch, while smoking in my car. I loved it.

Man Down the Hall leaves his place three times a day, carrying nothing as he crosses the parking lot to his indistinct car. The first outing occurs around 9:00 a.m. and lasts about fifteen minutes, after which he returns with a disposable hot drink cup, presumably filled with coffee. The cup’s logo is yet to be determined. The matter has not been investigated with binoculars.

Dear Duke Thomas Wakefield,

I much appreciate the invitation to the racetrack for opening day. The grand spectacle of domesticated stallions galloping across the groomed track is most enjoyable. The glee brought from viewing the spectacular mammals outweighs the discomfort brought on by the sweating mass of working class would be rioters in attendance.